


the search

by diminishedmercury



Series: Snapshots from The Battlegrounds [6]
Category: SMITE (Video Game)
Genre: aphro unintentionally instigating shit again, beginnings of friendship, cu has issues with family, persephone also has issues but with making friends, persephone is Too Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 17:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20821439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diminishedmercury/pseuds/diminishedmercury
Summary: He likes her because she’s curious. He likes her because she’s not disrespectful in her questioning. He’s caught off-guard when she asks a certain question though. “Would you like to see your family again?”He pauses at that. He doesn’t really have a definitive answer. He has much shame surrounding his late family. He killed his own son and watched his adoptive son perish in grief. He watched his wife, Emer, pass on from the Heavens long after he’d been killed. He’d killed his best friend and lover, Ferdiad: forced to fight against his friend to protect Ulster. “If they woul’ see me,” He settles for.OR: Persephone enters the Battlegrounds and very quickly starts to make friends and enemies. Cú Chulainn finds that he would prefer to call himself her friend.





	the search

Persephone enters their group fairly quickly after she joins the Battleground. Cú Chulainn isn’t really sure _how _it happens, but he finds that he quite enjoys the red-head’s company. She’s intelligent and well-spoken, but he finds that she’s still rather childish and playful when it comes to… well, anything really. She likes to observe and learn and rarely does anything get past her observant eye.

When he meets her, it’s at some Greek banquet Aphrodite has coerced him to join her for. He thinks she just wants to piss off Ares with his presence, but he doesn’t really care that much. He sits at her side with Persephone on the other side of him and Hades at her other side. He’s surprised to see the man actually participating in anything the Greeks have decided to do, but he suspects that may be Persephone’s influence at play. He realizes halfway through the meal that there are _many _tensions among the Greeks and there are sides to be picked. She’s gathering allies for _something _and he knows that he’s now become a person of interest to Persephone when she spends the night conversing with him and asking him for tales from his mortal lifetime.

He likes her because she’s curious. He likes her because she’s not disrespectful in her questioning. He’s caught off-guard when she asks a certain question though. “Would you like to see your family again?”

He pauses at that. He doesn’t really have a definitive answer. He has much shame surrounding his late family. He killed his own son and watched his adoptive son perish in grief. He watched his wife, Emer, pass on from the Heavens long after he’d been killed. He’d killed his best friend and lover, Ferdiad: forced to fight against his friend to protect Ulster. “If they woul’ see me,” He settles for.

She hums in acknowledgement, turning her body to fully face him now and laying a hand on his shoulder. “They ask about you. I believe they would like to see you.” He shrugs, looking somewhat reluctant to believe that. Emer he could believe, but he doesn’t think that Connla or Lugaid would still view their father in a positive light. “You don’t even have to say anything- I have messages I pass on to the deceased’s families.”

“Maybe.” He relents.

“Come. At the very least, you can keep me company?” The laugh in her voice reminds him too much of Emer to refuse and that’s how he finds himself agreeing to visit Hades and Persephone in their Underworld domain.

* * *

He finds that the Greek’s idea of the afterlife is just as depressing as the Celtic idea of passing. Maybe that’s because this is the same Underworld for all Pantheons- he’s not really sure, but it’s darker and colder than he remembered death to be. Persephone greets him at the gates and pulls him away to her Castle and he finds that it’s actually rather simple. He’s not sure what he thought the Queen and King of the Underworld’s home would look like, but it’s lived in and intimate and he likes it. It’s less gold and grandeur and more “dog beds in every corner of the living room.” They have more dogs than just Cerberus and he loves them all.

She drags him further into the home, small trinkets decorating shelves on the wall and paintings of gardens and pomegranate trees greet his visit. “I must confess, I have… _another_ matter I would discuss with you while you are in our home.”

“The war?” He asks absentmindedly, bent down and petting the large hound named Genesis. She’s cute and fluffy and he wonders if he could convince the Goddess to let him take her home with him. She looks surprised that he’s so bold in his assumption, but she doesn’t look like he’s wrong either.

“Perhaps,” She starts, “but that is for another day, Cú Chulainn.” He’s curious now, looking up at her from the fluffy snowball he’s been petting. “I don’t often find company I enjoy as I do my husband’s; I don’t have many friends. I fear that may be my mother’s doing.” She sounds sad as she speaks and Cú Chulainn feels a pang of sympathy for her. She squats down to the same level as him, soft hands resting on either side of his face. He’s forced to stare into her eyes and he sees a question there that he can’t name. “I want to be friends, regardless of whether or not you support my war. That is why I asked you here.” He is, again, reminded of Emer. She had been so bright and bloomed more beautifully than any flower he’d ever seen- and Persephone, the Goddess of Spring, held those same qualities.

“Ya sound unsure, lassie.”

“No one wants to call the Queen of the Underworld ‘friend.’ Forgive me if I sound… insecure.” He’s surprised she’s admitting to that, but maybe not. He doesn’t think she’s a dishonest Goddess for all that she rules over. He likes that, too, he decides.

“A beast and a queen… sounds like a joke, no?” He teases and she huffs out a small chuckle before patting one of his cheeks and standing up. She pats down her skirt and offers him a hand to stand. He accepts it and pulls himself to full height and is forced to marvel at how small the Goddess appears to be. Power can be deceiving. “You can coun’ me as a friend, Persephone. Didn’ need t’ ask.” The smile on her face is heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.

“Does this mean I can join your ‘mortal movies nights’?” He feels his nose wrinkle up at the thought of those nights (they don’t even watch the movies anymore, it’s just an excuse for Aphrodite to get her meddlesome hands on her friends’ private lives).

“If ya wan’. Just hope ya can deal with Aphro’s wanderin’ hands.” He snorts out a laugh when she excitedly claps her hands together with a quiet ‘excellent!’ and flings her arms around him in a hug. He doesn’t think this is very “royal” behavior, but he finds it refreshing from all the royals he’d known in his lifetime. She’s childish, but he finds he likes that too.

“Now- I promised you something, didn’t I?” She had, but Cú Chulainn doesn’t know if he even wants to read those messages. He doesn’t know if he could even face his family in writing. She seems to catch on to his hesitance. “… but I think that you can help me with feeding the dogs instead. How does that sound?”

“Like heaven,” he laughs. He likes Persephone and he likes her dogs. He doesn’t think it’s so bad that she’s managed to claim a spot so quickly- things feel just a little less lonely here in the Battlegrounds with her, Aphrodite, Artio, and Bellona around. He loves his new family as much as he loved his old one, he decides.


End file.
